GUNMA: Life and People. by Greg Davis. Tokyo: IPJ, 2002, 107 pp., 5,000 yen (cloth).

Greg Davis had lived in Japan since 1970, working as a photojournalist throughout Asia. His sudden death on May 4 of liver cancer at the age of 54 is a major loss to his profession and those whose lives he touched all over the world. He was always searching for the new frontier, trying to get out the stories that were not being covered and presenting a history between the lines that he witnessed. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Newton, Du, Der Spiegel, Critical Asian Studies and in many other publications. His most recent projects focused on Central Asia where he was working on both contemporary issues and disinterring the legacy of Alexander the Great.

It is fortunate that he leaves behind such an eloquent and captivating montage on Gunma, northwest of Tokyo, where he had maintained a residence since the mid-1980s. The 103 black-and-white images shot by Davis in 2001-2002 convey a deep understanding of Japan and what it is losing.

Like Hiroshi Hamaya's best work in the 1950s, Davis wields his lens like a social anthropologist, capturing present moments that anticipate impending transformations. Hamaya's classic photo books, "Yukiguni" and "Uranihon," focused on everyday life in remote backward areas of Japan. The lifestyle, customs and traditional practices of that era have been swept away, leaving only faint traces of what older people can still recall, if only vaguely.